


Before

by Ivyfics (ivyfics)



Series: Surviving the Apocalypse (And Making Friends Along the Way) [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, M/M, Tags to be added as I go along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 10:04:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19944385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyfics/pseuds/Ivyfics
Summary: There are bits and bobs people don’t account for when preparing for the apocalypse. The usual stuff gets put on a list and kept in storage just in case, sometimes never getting used at all. There are other things that never make it to a checkmark or run by anyone’s mind when scavenging for resources.Bad eyes during the apocalypse have to be some sort of cosmic joke.





	Before

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! This is an old tumblr ask that is part of apocalypse au so I'm setting everything up for when that's done. the original prompt was “I won’t let anyone hurt you, you’re safe with me.”
> 
> This is a prequel of sorts for the main au, hope you enjoy!

There are bits and bobs people don’t account for when preparing for the apocalypse. The usual stuff gets put on a list and kept in storage just in case, sometimes never getting used at all. There are other things that never make it to a checkmark or run by anyone’s mind when scavenging for resources.

Food, water, first aid, shelter, heat, light source, weapons. The basics. Cans and things that won’t rot. Kei found a couple of jars of honey a few weeks back and it’s been the only thing keeping him sane. He’s traced the black and yellow stripes of the bee above 100% organic, real Honey! a hundred times by now.

Those things, the regular things people know to look for, they’re hard to get and hard to keep but people are looking. They’re on the hunt for anything and everything to stockpile. To survive.

Then there’s the other stuff. The things you miss until you need them. The things that some people need but no one’s looking for, or even think about. The end of the world is brutally and painfully anticlimactic. No big Hollywood explosions, just lots of diabetics running out of insulin.

Wet wipes to clean stuff because water is worth more than gold.

Knife sharpeners, because a dull blade means the difference between life and death sometimes.

Pads and tampons (for obvious reasons.)

Eyeglasses. There will come a time when your last pair of contacts runs out, bent and foggy. When the glass held in front of your eyes breaks, or scratches, or simply doesn’t work anymore.

Kei’s broke.

Those are bits.

Bobs are different things. Not entirely material, but curious and necessary. Clothes warm enough to not need a blanket, a small token to keep you sane, unwavering companions that won’t leave you stranded when you’re hurt.

Kei doesn’t exactly know what someone’s eyes look like when they choose themselves and leave you behind only because his eyesight’s too blurry to actually tell. He can give you his best impression, though.

He doesn’t hold it against any of them, except that human part of him far, far away that’s not yet resigned to dying alone in a shack. The reeling part of him that doesn’t want to be bleeding against the closed door, using himself as a barricade. The tiny dot inside of him that just wants to cry because he’s bleeding and alone _and he can’t see._

It’s…not good.

Bad eyes during the apocalypse have to be some sort of cosmic joke.

There are things he could be doing. No light, because that would give away his location, but running inventory would be helpful. Changing the rags on his wound, getting hydrated—wait, that last one is null, that with his group taking all of his with them.

Everything around him is a blob, spaces of fuzzy color overlapping one another until there’s nothing but an impressionist painting of the color brown. It’s not much different from the outside as far as he can tell.

He’s sweating, bangs matted against his forehead. He most likely has a fever, the shack boiling around on a crisp autumn day. He wishes his body could fight this but his breathing is already labored and slow.

Howls break-in from the outside and Kei stiffens, trying to put as much of his weight on the door. It’s useless. If they sniff him out no amount of dying weight on a flimsy door is going to keep them from tearing into him, taking his eyes, his hair, his shape all for themselves.

Kei loses the futile battle against unconsciousness and dreams fever dreams of howls and beasts and stolen faces.

A quiet click by his head wakes him.

Kei flinches when he sees shapes of yellow, red and black moving around him.   
His voice is barely audible but he croaks out, “Wh’re you?”

The figure stops and moves closer, clearing some of that fuzz and giving way to a sort of face. “This is my shack.”

Of course, the abandoned shack wouldn’t be abandoned. He thinks about it a little—or a lot, there’s not telling time when your feverish and bleeding out in an unabandoned shack in the middle of nowhere—and frowns. He wiggles and his spine rubs painfully against wood. “My back’s on the door.”

“Back entrance.”

The shape moves again and stands, walking around the shack and what he assumes are shelves against the walls. The further they go the less Kei can recognize, shapes and colors bleeding into each other. They’re quiet, the shack owner, steps making no sound against the floor. They’re short and taking their sweet time looking for whatever it is they’re looking for.

They come back to him, kneeling on his wounded side and dropping something on the floor. There’s crinkling and tearing before they’re pulling a vial and a syringe, the motions familiar enough for Kei to recognize what they are.

“Are you one of them?” Kei stares ahead at them, or rather at their general direction, unblinking.

They sigh and in a quick motion plunge the syringe into his wound. It’s agony, Kei’s entire body curls in on itself from the pain. He bites down hard on his lip to stop himself from crying out, breath faltering.

Hands push back on his shoulder to straighten him against wood, easing the burden on his lungs. It’s easier to breathe but everything else is harder. It’s harder to bleed, to fight against the spreading sting, to have some hope that this is just one of the nightmare that plagues him since he ran.

They hold his head up when it droops, everything hazing over with the lull of unconsciousness instead of myopia. They answer him, softly.

“Does it matter now?”

* * *

Kei wakes again with a pained groan and howling at his back. They’ve found him, or maybe he was never lost to them. Maybe the yellow and red blob called them over to grab another body for their cause.

He’s burning up, head lolling to the side and fire in his gut that runs free through whatever blood is left inside of him. His wound burns from the inside out, nothing but stains of angry red on the white of the shirt he’s wearing. This is it, isn’t it? This is how he goes. He should’ve offed himself in the woods before letting them have him.

Three shots go off to his side after he says that, followed by pinched grunts from outside. Kei focuses all his energy to turn. They’re kneeling by the light of the window, close enough for Kei to tell, some rifle or weapon on his hands.

More howling comes, then two more shots until it’s blessedly quiet again.

They come back to Kei, cool hand pushing back his damp bangs as they kneel. They come closer and closer until Kei can see gold flecks and thick lashes as clear as day.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you, you’re safe with me.”

* * *

When Kei wakes next, he’s slumped to the side and has a crick in his neck.

That’s it.

There’s no howling, no bleeding.

Kei can see.

His limbs are stiff and aching but unharmed. His hand slaps his face with a little too much force, hitting thick smooth rims and jabbing them into the bridge of his nose. It’s impossible. They broke, in front of him, under the foot of one of the beasts.

He pulls them off, careful, so careful with them. They keep him alive, these things. They look brand new, an elastic now wrapped around the legs to keep them in place like the ones librarians used when librarians were still a thing.

He scrambles to put them on and finally take a look around, peering down at himself and his wound first. Pretty, it’s not. Skin stretches over the gash, pink and shiny. It’s barely tender when he presses gingerly against it, and nothing rattles when he breathes deep but getting up on his feet takes effort and leaves him sweating again.

Dried blood marrs the door behind him and Kei’s stomach lurches at the phantom feeling of how it got there.

The window where They shot the beasts is broken, the bottom panel bereft of any glass. It lets light slowly trickle in and bounce off the shelves lined with everything one might need. Bottles of water stacked neatly beside each other on the bottom rung, clear enough to cast a reflection of the morning light on the hard floors. Blankets and bedding follow, along with food and boots different sizes. Folded clothes, aid kits, flashlights, a burner, three separate daggers, and a rifle.

There’s enough there to keep him alive. Enough bits to last him a good long while. There’s also a stack of books by the empty spaces along the shelves, a pair of headphones and a box next to them that he hopes is something they connect to.

A table stands lonely and crooked in the middle of the shack. Kei nears it for support, unsteady legs wobbling with his added weight. There’s a note there. Kei’s heart speeds up when he reaches for it, hand trembling.

In neat handwriting, _“Beasts are cleared. Keep the shack.”_

Kei almost doubles over, hand closing tight and crumpling the note. It makes no sense.

_Does it matter now?_

“I guess it does,” he whispers, relief rushing through him.

* * *


End file.
